


A Week in the Life

by PompeiiT



Series: The Helen Jarvis Adventures [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alien/Human Relationships, Crimes & Criminals, Gen, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24202303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PompeiiT/pseuds/PompeiiT
Summary: D.I. Helen Jarvis finds herself caught up in a curious case surrounding several deaths across Manchester. With time running out before another innocent is killed, can she crack the case? And who's that mad Scottish man she keeps bumping into?
Series: The Helen Jarvis Adventures [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1746817
Kudos: 7





	1. Day 1: Thursday

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first in a new series of fanfics featuring the Twelfth Doctor and my original companion, Helen Jarvis.

_Ding!  
  
_The sign marked ‘STOPPING’ flashed red at the end of the bus, and Helen Jarvis awkwardly shuffled her way past the bloke in the seat next to her, and stumbled forwards, before steadying herself by gripping on to a handrail.

It wasn’t always like this, of course. The bus was particularly packed tonight, much to Helen’s irritation. ‘One tiny flutter of snow, and suddenly people can’t be bothered walking home’, she thought to herself, as she barged past a mother trying to calm her screaming toddler.

The bus ground to a halt at the end of Hanshaw Road, and the doors spluttered open. Helen thanked the driver, who replied with only a grunt, and hopped off, enjoying the satisfying _crunch_ sound the snow made beneath her boots. As the bus trundled off into the distance, Helen sighed. She hated winter. She hated most things, nowadays. The weather, public transport, pop music, the news – in particular, that one presenter with a, quite frankly, horrendous taste in dresses – but most of all, she hated this street.

It wasn’t always this bad, it used to be packed with sweet elderly couples, like Bill and Jean across the street from her. Bill died a few years ago, though, and Jean’s family packed her off to an old folk’s home. That’s when it all changed, and that rough family moved in. Helen hadn’t bothered learning their names. Parties till dawn, unruly children screaming in the street, and she’d lost count of the number of times a police car had pulled up outside their house.

Just as the snow started getting heavier, Helen trudged up the pathway towards her home, and promptly slammed the door behind her as she tried not to drag too much snow into the hallway.

After unzipping her jacket and hanging it over the radiator to dry, Helen gazed into the mirror. God, when did she turn into her mother? Bags under her eyes, hair greying a bit… and wrinkles too? This job was aging her before her time. She liked to think that in another life she’d have flown off to Hollywood and married Brad Pitt, and she could have all the botox money could buy. But no, in reality she was single, living in an inconsequential suburb of Manchester, and with all the money she had, she’d be lucky to afford even a spray tan.

A few minutes passed, and soon Helen found herself slumped on the sofa, nursing a glass of pinot grigio, and perusing the latest issue of _Take a Break_. Apparently Posh & Becks have fallen out again, how fascinating. And then, her evening was ruined… by a ringtone.

Helen sighed. Couldn’t she go just one night without being pestered? For once in her life, she was actually hoping it’d be a cold caller. She reached into her pocket, dug out her phone, and groaned. ‘MARCO’ flashed up on the screen, alongside a photo of Helen and Marco at the annual Christmas party – the year they both got wrecked and woke up in Surrey. She answered the call.

“What is it this time?” she teased, before taking a sip of her wine. “Deranged lunatic on the loose, using only a Michael Ball CD as a weapon? I’m telling you, one track of his would be enough to knock me out stone cold.”

“No, ma’am, it’s- Well, it’s sort of hard to explain…”

“Well you could at least try. Use your words, little one, I believe in you.”

“Just… come down to Salford Quays, ma’am. I think it’d be easier if you saw it for yourself.”

And just like that, Helen said goodbye to a relaxing evening in front of _Coronation Street_ , and dragged herself off the couch.

* * *

Having decided to call a taxi – and spare herself the trauma of another bus ride – Helen soon arrived outside the TV studios on the banks of the old ship canal. Marco jogged over to her, his totally-not-whitened teeth glistening in the moonlight.

“Let’s just get it over with, eh?” Helen sighed, “What are we working with?”

“Suspected murder, ma’am. Woman, mid-30s, found in a storage cupboard next door to one of the studios.” explained Marco, as he pulled out an iPad and brought up some images of the crime scene. For once, nothing too grizzly, just… a body in a cupboard.

“Hang on, don’t I know her?” Helen inquired, as she grabbed hold of the tablet and zoomed in on the victim’s face. “Oh god, that’s her off the telly, isn’t it? The one who does the news in-”

“-in those ugly clothes, yeah. Maria McCormack, worked for the BBC. A few suspicions were raised when she didn’t show up to do the News at Six, then a janitor found her slumped in there, next to his mop and bucket.”

Helen often found Marco’s enthusiasm for these cases slightly unsettling. But, to be fair, he was young… he’d soon learn. Learn to be like her, cynical and sarcastic. “I think I’d like to meet this janitor.”

* * *

It’s almost as though she’d pissed someone off, up there in the sky. Not God, Helen wasn’t a believer in all that nonsense. She was more likely to believe President Trump’s skin really _was_ that shade of neon highlighter orange, than she was to believe in a deity. But tonight was pushing her closer to the edge, now that John – the janitor – was hovering over the dead body of Maria McCormack, waving a flashy blue torch over her, and mumbling something about DNA.

“Sir, if you could just step away from the scene of the crime-” Marco tried to pull the janitor away from the corpse.

“Typical police, you’ve got quite possibly the biggest case of your lives, and I’m the only one who can help you solve it, and you’re going to ignore me, aren’t you?” the janitor hissed in a Scottish drawl, as he reluctantly put his torch back into his pocket, and allowed himself to be yanked out of the cupboard.

Helen found an empty meeting room for the three of them to sit down in. “Mr. Smith, I’m Detective Inspector Helen Jarvis, this is Sergeant Marco Lane. We just want to ask you a few questions about what’s happened here, and take a statement, is that alright?”

“No, actually.” said John, raising one of his unbelievably prominent eyebrows. “I don’t have time for this, I need to track down whoever’s using a DNA splicing gun – an incredibly dangerous piece of equipment when in the wrong hands – and right now, it could belong to anyone on this ridiculous little planet you like to call home. So, if you’d like to keep calling it home, we’re done here.”

And with that, John jumped out his chair, marched out the door, and stormed off. Helen and Marco sat in shock for a moment. “D’you think he’s drunk?” Marco asked.

“Smashed off his face.”

* * *

The Doctor was angry.

Someone was tampering with human DNA, and this wasn’t the first time it’d happened either. And the worst part was, nobody had noticed anything. The silly little police force with their inspectors and sergeants would write it off as natural causes – no internal or external injuries - and that’d be that.

He was the only one who could put a stop to it. And time was running out.

* * *

Helen was tired. For the second time today, she found herself kicking off bits of snow from her boots as she stood in the hallway, but this time she was deep in thought. This wasn’t your average case, this was a high-profile victim, with no visible external injuries, so the spotlight was on her to find out what really went on.

As she lay in bed later that night, she couldn’t take her mind off that mad janitor. DNA splicing guns? Ridiculous little planet? Something definitely wasn’t right with him, and she wasn’t convinced he was just tipsy either. Maybe he had something to do with it – of course, it was unlikely that a TV presenter would wander into a storage closet and suddenly drop dead. That janitor was guilty as sin, and Helen was going to track him down. Tomorrow, though. Right now, she had a date with an Ann Cleeves novel and a hot chocolate.


	2. Day 2: Friday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor and Helen have a second run-in, as Helen's concerns over the death of Maria McCormack grow.

Who invented cornflakes? The question spun round Helen’s mind as she took another spoonful. They’re not tasty, they’re not fun, they’re not even particularly good for you – so what lunatic decided that this would be their chosen way to start the day? She had to dump at metric ton of sweetener on top of them before they were even remotely edible.

Mind you, thought Helen, there were some slightly more pressing matters going on in the world. As she expected, Maria McCormack’s death was the top story on breakfast TV. Those grinning morons were putting on their sad face and talking about how she was a much valued member of the team… but if _Take a Break_ were to be believed, then this was all nonsense – apparently Maria was copping off with this woman’s husband, and she also had a fling with the bloke sitting next to her. Good for her, thought Helen, get it while you can.

It’d been a while since Helen ‘got any’ – a few years at least, not since Dave’s 40th birthday, and even then she was off her face on vodka. That was before it all went sour, before she caught Dave in bed with his dental hygienist… called Colin. Then came the divorce.

It wasn’t for lack of trying, mind you, Marco had often dragged her out to the local clubs – to no success. Helen didn’t mind though, she was resigned to her fate as an elderly spinster. She might even get a cat, just to complete ‘the look’. Enough daydreaming, though, she had work to do – Marco had text to say Maria’s post-mortem had already taken place, it’d been rushed through like some ‘special order’, and apparently the results were… intriguing.

* * *

“Are you for real?”

“Yes.” said Shelley, the pathologist. “No internal or external injuries. Natural causes.”

Helen rolled her eyes. Yeah, right, a fit and healthy 30-something year old woman died of natural causes. She gazed down at the slab, where Maria’s cold, grey body was lying still. She didn’t deserve this, she deserved some glamorous celebrity death – a cocaine overdose, choking on her own vomit, crushed to death by her own enormous ego. Yeah, glamorous.

“I don’t buy it.” Helen scoffed.

“Neither do I”, came an unfamiliar voice. Helen and Shelley spun around to see an older man – white hair, wrinkled face, unwelcoming eyebrows – standing, arms folded, in the corner of the room. He strolled over to join them. “But, to be fair, that’s because I know what killed her.”

“Who the hell are you?” Shelley asked, taking a precautionary step back.

“I’m the Doctor.”

“I think you’ll find I’m the doctor in here, mate.” laughed Shelley. Helen rolled her eyes again, this pathologist had always been insufferably smug.

“Very clever. You need to be looking deeper, not just externally or internally, you need to look at her DNA.”

“Oh, god. It’s you isn’t it? The janitor, from the TV studios. You were going on about DNA yesterday as well.” Just what she needed, Helen thought, another run-in with this nutjob.

This ‘Doctor’ smiled at her. “And you’re Detective Inspector Whatshername Know-It-All, right? Pleasure to meet you again. Well, actually, it’s not, I’m just attempting to be polite.” He nudged Helen out of the way and stood over Maria’s body.

“No, I’m sorry – what the _hell_ is going on here? Do I have to call security?” Shelley hissed, pulling her phone out of her pocket.

“No need, I’m DCI John Smith from Scotland Yard, I’ve been assigned to this case.” explained the Doctor, and to prove his point, he showed her a slip of paper held inside a leather wallet. Shelley took one look at it and sighed.

“Fair enough, DCI Smith. Sorry about the misunderstanding. I’ll leave you two to it.” And with that, Shelley scuttled off to take her lunch break.

Helen folded her arms and stared at this strange man, who was – once again – waving his blue torch over the body. “You’re full of it, you know that? Shelley Simpleton might buy your bluffing but I’m not having any of it, mate. Who are you – really?”

The Doctor sighed. “I’m the Doctor. I’m a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous, and I’m somewhere between 900 and 4 billion years old – I’m always a bit fuzzy on that last bit. I travel through time and space in my TARDIS – Time and Relative Dimensions in Space – and I’m the only person on this side of the universe that could possibly help you solve this case, and stop another person getting murdered like this. Now, if you’d kindly shut up and let me carry on my inspection of the corpse, I’d be much obliged.”

Helen stared at him.

The Doctor smiled back. And then he found himself in handcuffs.

* * *

Helen flopped down on her bed.

Another ridiculously long day, not helped by that psycho ‘Doctor’ bloke. After refusing to answer any of her questions, she decided it’d be best to keep him in the cells overnight, stop him from causing any more trouble. But… despite him being absolutely, undoubtedly mad, she couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said over the past few days. All that stuff about DNA, how he was the only one who could help her on this case. She’d have to question him some more tomorrow, maybe even charge him for interfering with a police investigation.

And just as Helen was about to doze off, her phone buzzed. A text from Marco.

_‘Another body. This one's weird. Could be related to McCormack. Phone me.’_

Helen let out a groan.

The Doctor would have to wait.


	3. Day 3: Saturday (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor's suspicions may be correct, as Helen reluctantly turns to him for help.

The Doctor didn’t sleep. Ever. Sleeping was for boring, ordinary people, who had nothing better to do with their time.

So, he stayed awake all night, confined in this ridiculously tiny cell. All for what? _Daring_ to try and help out? He was growing weary of all this adventuring lark, anyway. It was time he retired. There was a lovely asteroid in the Pollistra galaxy that had the most delightful little tea room, he ought to retire there. Bit small, mind you, and the locals are talking snakes with a penchant for musical theatre. But he could learn to deal with that, Donna dragged him along to a matinee performance of _Mamma Mia_ once, and if he could live through that, he could live through anything.

This wasn’t just his average adventure, of course, this time he actually had a purpose. Somebody had stolen an incredibly valuable item from the Braxiatel Collection – Irving Braxiatel’s archive of rare, and often dangerous, artefacts – and he had called on the Doctor to help track the thief down.

So far, he’d narrowed it down to one planet – Earth, of course. It was always Earth. Specifically, it was hiding somewhere in north-west England.

It was the DNA splicer – an advanced piece of medical equipment, very rarely used even in the right hands. But now, it was in the wrong hands. Someone, or something, was murdering innocent humans – ripping out their very DNA, and stitching it together with the DNA of an entirely different race. It was essentially a portable Frankenstein machine, making monsters everywhere it went.

And now, much to the Doctor’s annoyance, the police were sniffing around the cases, sticking their noses into things they couldn’t understand. Typical humans. The Doctor was starting to question if he still liked them as much as he used to.

What exactly where they expecting to find, anyway? All they were doing was skimming the surface, ‘natural causes’, yeah right. What about digging a little deeper, _then_ they might discover that Maria McCormack’s DNA had actually been spliced together with that of a Franciscans, the lizard people from Karanta III. Sweet enough people, but they emitted a scent from their nasal glands that persuaded anyone in the vicinity to fall madly in love with them. He should know, he spent the better part of a decade married to a Franciscan named Sheila. Ah, Sheila. The divorce was amicable enough; she got the kids, he got the CDs.

The Doctor stopped daydreaming once the cell door creaked open, and D.I. Helen Jarvis stepped inside.

“We’ve been in contact with UNIT, and…” she sighed, and rolled her eyes “And we need your help.”

The Doctor jumped off the bed. “At long last.” he grinned, before nudging past her and sweeping out of the cell.

Helen rolled her eyes again. She was getting too old for this.

* * *

“This new case is… different, to say the least. Hence why we contacted UNIT, and they passed us on to you.” Helen explained. By now, she and the Doctor were sitting in the back of a car. She flicked through images on her phone. “See?”

The Doctor snatched the phone off her, staring intently at the images. What was he looking at? Some kind of… man-rat? Rat-man? No, that just sounded like a rubbish superhero. The body of a man… with the head of a rat, and a tail?

“Feel free to theorise, your guess is surely as good as mine.”

The Doctor passed the phone back to her, and, staring out the window, simply said “DNA splicing.”

* * *

The car pulled up outside a construction site, and the Doctor and Helen jumped out. Marco, who was already at the scene, attempted to hand them both fluorescent yellow crash helmets. Both silently refused, and walked past him.

“His name was Piotr Nowak, originally from Poland, arrived here approximately 3 years ago, worked on this construction site ever since. Hardly at the same level of importance as McCormack.” Helen said, as she and the Doctor gazed up towards an unfinished apartment block.

“McCormack?” The Doctor looked at Helen quizzically, raising one of his almighty eyebrows.

“Maria McCormack, the victim from the other day. High-profile TV newsreader, don’t tell me you’ve never heard of her.” scoffed Helen. Although, he was Scottish – did they have BBC News in Scotland? Perhaps not the time for questions like that.

“And her being on the telly makes her more important than Piotr? I don’t see her building homes for people. Where’s the body now?”

Helen stuttered. “Uh, the local hospital. Why?”

“I need to inspect the body, confirm my suspicions.” said the Doctor, and with that, he stomped back over to the car.

Marco sheepishly edged towards Helen. “He seems… intense.”

“He’s a bloody pain in the backside, that’s what he is. ‘Scientific advisor’, my foot, the man’s a luna-” Helen’s insult was cut short by the Doctor whistling at her from across the site. She exhaled slowly. This week really was testing her. “Back soon,” she smiled to Marco “Just off on a day trip, wish me luck.”

Marco smiled back at her, and waved her off – her little face mouthing ‘Help me’ as the car drove away. Then his phone _ding_ -ed. Ooh, that bloke from Grindr wanted to meet up tonight. A date _and_ seeing his boss being driven mental, it must’ve been his lucky day.


	4. Day 3: Saturday (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor and Helen investigate the body of Piotr Nowak, before their evening takes a surprising turn.

The Doctor and Helen stared down at the slab, where Piotr Nowak lay underneath a white sheet. The Doctor tentatively pulled the sheet back, to reveal Piotr’s half-rat half-man corpse.

Helen covered her nose and mouth in shock. “So… DNA splicing?” she said, trying not to vomit.

The Doctor leaned in closer to Piotr, investigating his body, the parts where man met rat. “Seems like it. Look here, there’s no visible scarring or stitches, this is… natural.”

“Natural!?” Helen spluttered. “He’s got the head of a giant rat, don’t try and tell me that’s natural! He had a wife and two children, and I’ve got officers over at his house trying to explain to them that their husband and father is now an overgrown rodent. What part of that, prey tell, is natural to you, Doctor? Oh, and while I’m here, what actually _is_ your name? Because it may have escaped your notice that ‘Doctor’ isn’t a name, but a title. Not even Posh and Becks would be mental enough to name their kid ‘Doctor’!”

The Doctor turned to her and raised an eyebrow. “Are you finished?”

He soon realised his mistake, as Helen stormed out, leaving him to nurse a freshly-slapped cheek. Still, no matter. His suspicions were indeed correct, but that was always the case – well, almost always. This was a prime example of DNA splicing – someone ripped out the DNA of a rat, and injected it into Piotr, causing him to mutate into this… creature. Of course, his body couldn’t handle it, and that’s why he’d died. Shame. The rat probably had a wife and kids as well.

But the question now was, why Piotr? Why Maria McCormack? Why the rat? Why a Franciscan? All fairly random. The Doctor hated that – everything should have a pattern, why not this? What kind of disorganised lunatic would go on a Frankenstein-creating murder spree without planning it out first, it was the height of ill-manners.

And then the obvious hit him – just as Helen had a few moments earlier – where exactly had this person found Franciscan DNA on Earth?

* * *

Helen sat in the hospital café, sipping on a caramel latte. It wasn’t her usual choice of beverage, mind you, but the hipster barista behind the counter – the one who misspelt her name as ‘Hollane’ - had somehow persuaded her to buy one.

This ‘Doctor’ was getting right on her nerves, who did he think he was, swanning into her investigation and basically taking over? UNIT-recommended, yeah right. About as recommendable as that B&B she stayed in for Shazza Costello’s hen weekend.

Helen gazed out the window. When did it get so late? The sun was already setting. She glanced down at her watch – it was 8:14pm – and took another sip of her latte, that was by now essentially just cold frothy milk with only a suggestion of caramel.

“Sorry about earlier.” said an (unfortunately) familiar voice behind her. The Doctor plonked himself down on the chair across from her. “But I think I’m onto something.”

Helen sighed. Here he goes again.

“Maria McCormack’s body contained traces of alien DNA-” he began to explain. Yep, thought Helen, he’s a madman. “Specifically, Franciscan DNA. Now, you don’t come across a Franciscan every day in Manchester, mainly because their home planet is billions of lightyears away. Oh, and because their species was wiped out by the Daleks a very long time ago, but that’s a story for another time. So, my question for you is this – how did someone stumble across their DNA?”

“They found it in one of my ex-husband’s dirty socks?” Helen cackled, eliciting a brief look from Mr. Hipster Barista.

The Doctor failed to appreciate Helen’s humour. “No, of course not. My theory is, that we’ve got a Franciscan hiding out somewhere in Greater Manchester.”

“Yeah, sure. I bet there’s a whole family of them living in Bolton.” said Helen, dryly, unconvinced.

“You joke, but you never know.”

And then, Helen’s phone started to ring. She sighed, and lifted her handbag up onto the table. The Doctor looked on in amazement as she pulled out old tissues, receipts, lipstick, empty food packets, an unopened can of gin & tonic, and then finally, her phone. “Honestly, sometimes I think this thing is bigger on the inside.”

The Doctor smiled.

“Sorry, this is my junior.” she said, before answering the call. “Marco, what’s up?”

Realising he wasn’t interested in listening in, the Doctor wandered off to browse the café’s selection of snacks. Humans, he thought, never failed to astound him with their obsession with finding different flavours for dried potatoes. Behind him, he could hear Helen laughing. He wasn’t sure what he made of her yet, but she’d be a suitable assistant for this particular investigation. He wasn’t interested in travelling with humans anymore, not after what happened with Clara. They were too breakable, too fragile. And perhaps, so was he.

Helen joined him at the counter, pulling on her coat. “Well, if you’re done inspecting the body, I think we can call it a night, don’t you?”

The Doctor nodded, and they began to stroll down the stairs towards the hospital’s front doors.

“So go on, then,” Helen began, knowing full well that she’d regret asking this question. “What do these Franny-whatsits look like then?”

“The _Franciscans_ don’t look entirely dissimilar to humans. Well, if you excuse the yellow scales that cover their body. And their blue eyes. And their snake tongues. Oh, and their tails.”

Helen stopped suddenly at the bottom of the stairs, frantically scrambling in her pockets to find her phone. “Oh god, _oh god_!” she shouted, as the Doctor watched on, confused.

“Is there a problem?”

“Marco!” Helen exclaimed, with the phone glued to her ear. “Listen to this-” she continued, before pressing the phone against the Doctor’s head. “Describe those Franciscans again.” she ordered.

“Why?”

“Because I think Marco’s just been kidnapped by one.”


	5. Day 3: Saturday (Part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco date night doesn't go exactly according to plan, whilst Helen's evening goes from weird to weirder.

It wasn’t every Saturday night that Marco found himself hanging upside down in a dark warehouse. Actually, it wasn’t something that had ever happened to him before, believe it or not.

Perhaps he ought to rewind slightly. So, basically, what happened was… he waved his boss, Helen, off as she drove away with Professor Plum or whatever the guy’s name was… and then he got a notification off his Grindr.

Typically, he preferred not to use apps to find a date, it was usually just for a quick hook-up, but ever since Connor left him, he hadn’t had much luck. And this was six whole weeks ago, as well, what a nightmare.

He and Helen had often joked that if they ever found themselves elderly and single, then they’d marry each other just for the hell of it. Not that Marco would ever be single for that long, mind you. He wasn’t planning on getting elderly, either.

But this time, he’d thrown caution to the wind and actually arranged to meet up with this bloke, Daz. Proper fit, six-pack and everything. Admittedly his personality seemed a touch on the dry side, but that could be fixed by downing a few bottles of blue WKD.

So, after he left the construction site – blagging his way to an early exit, the old “my gran’s in hospital” line, which everyone bought, despite his gran dying four years prior – he’d rushed home, tarted himself up, and hit the town.

Or, at least, that was the plan. Daz had arranged an Uber for himself, and said he lived nearby so he might as well swing past Marco’s flat and pick him up too. Marco thought nothing of it, if anything, it was quite a sweet thing to do for a first date. An even sweeter thing would be not kidnapping him and keeping him locked up, to be fair.

So the Uber had pulled up outside, and Marco assured Keeley – his flatmate, they’d met in university after they both woke up in the same bloke’s bed – that he’d definitely not be back before midnight, and rushed downstairs.

Now, Marco had experienced some dodgy Ubers in his time, but this was next level. It was dark out, so he hadn’t noticed the blacked out windows before he got in the car. And as soon as he slammed the door, he found himself faced with… well, he wasn’t sure what he was faced with, to be honest. Some kind of… big lizard thing? But it looked a bit human too. Naturally, Marco started screaming his head off, and pulling at the door handles, but it was far too late, they’d already locked the doors and pulled away.

The driver was a surprisingly unremarkable man – mid 50s, perhaps, definitely balding, appalling taste in clothes (who the hell wears a cardigan on a Saturday night?) – and it was at that moment that Marco realised something truly horrible. Something that made him out to be the most idiotic, gullible, embarrassed individual this side of Manchester.

He’d been bloody catfished.

* * *

“Yeah, right back at ya mate!”

Helen hurled some expletives at a passing taxi driver. He in turn, hurled some even more expletives back.

“Why the hell is every taxi driver in the north-west suddenly so busy?” Helen complained, before turning her attention to the Doctor. “What the hell are you smiling about?”

“Because we don’t need a taxi. I’ve got something far better in mind.” he explained, rummaging around in his pockets, before revealing a small tin whistle in his hand.

Helen looked unimpressed. “Unless that’s a magic flute that can summon a black cab, I don’t see how that helps the situation.”

The Doctor gently blew into the whistle… and much to Helen’s unsurprise, nothing happened. Well, not immediately, at least. Eventually, she felt the wind around her starting to pick up, and a wheezing, groaning noise started gently tickling her ears. And then… well, what happened next was quite astonishing.

Helen suddenly found herself, and the Doctor, standing inside a huge, silver and grey room… with round lights decorating the circular walls, and a separate level covered in bookshelves and chalkboards… In the middle of the room stood some sort of hexagonal table, covered in different flashing lights and buttons, all connecting to a central column that stretched up towards the roof. Helen spun around in amazement.

“That whistle of yours… is that from Apple?”

The Doctor stared at her, unamused.

“Well, you never know nowadays, do you, technology’s moving so quickly. I thought they’d come out with the iClarinet.”

The Doctor continued to stare at her. “Aren’t you going to ask the obvious question?”

Helen paused for a moment, then gasped. “Oh yeah! Where the hell are we?”

“I’ll explain later,” The Doctor smiled, before twirling around and frantically dashing around the hexagonal… console, was it? He was flicking switches and pulling levers, and soon Helen heard that strange sound from earlier on. The column in the middle of the room began to rise and fall, rise and fall, and on the roof the three circular wheels spun around like cogs in a machine. “All you need to know,” continued the Doctor “is that I’m going to track down your friend, and we’re going to save him, and we’re going to stop whatever it is that’s actually going on here. Now shut your mouth, you’ll catch flies.”

“Do you have flies in here?”

“Not any flies you’ll be familiar with, at least.”

And then, overwhelmed with all these unfamiliar sights, sounds, even smells… Helen fainted. The Doctor stopped fiddling with the controls to stare down at her, and sighed. “Humans.” he tutted. “I never learn.”


	6. Day 4: Sunday (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Helen lies in the TARDIS unconscious, the Doctor and Marco discuss their predicament.

When Helen finally came around, she found herself alone in this mad room. The Doctor had abandoned her, typical. As she struggled to pull herself up off the floor – she’d had bad knees ever since her and Marco’s Ibiza Weekend 2017 (that annual event where she and a guy half her age travel to the Balearic Islands in order to get absolutely wrecked and cop off with some poor unsuspecting Spanish guys) – she noticed two doors at the far end of the room. Using her superior intellect and powers of deduction… she reckoned that if she went through those doors, she’d find the Doctor. Well, to be fair, it didn’t really take a Detective Inspector to work that one out.

So she hobbled towards the doors – which looked like they were made of wood, which was a bit of a downgrade from the silver and grey overload of the rest of the room – and cautiously pulled them open.

* * *

_A little earlier…_

The TARDIS landed with a thump, and the Doctor looked over at Helen’s unconscious body. It really was the height of ill manners to faint just as he was about to do something very impressive – piloting the TARDIS. No matter, he thought, she’d come round eventually.

He flung open the doors to reveal… well, a darkened warehouse. On second thoughts, the Doctor was glad Helen wasn’t around for this bit, that would’ve been one hell of a let-down for her first trip in a time-space machine.

Taking a confident step forward, the Doctor was somewhat unsurprised when a large light swinging from the ceiling suddenly blasted into life, revealing the scene before him. Dangling from the roof was a slim, well-groomed man, with a spray-tan to rival Donald Trump’s, whom the Doctor assumed to be Helen’s junior, Marco. Sitting in the middle of the warehouse was a large tank filled with a green liquid, with a sleeping Franciscan floating inside it. The alien had several tubes protruding from its body, which ran out of the tank and connected up to a large machine that didn’t look too different from a computer server.

“Are you an alien too?” came a voice.

The Doctor looked up to see Marco’s upside-down head staring back at him. “What makes you say that?”

“Because you just stepped out of a box that appeared from thin air. That, and your face looks a bit weird.”

The Doctor tried not to be insulted. He walked forward and began to circle Marco. “The question here isn’t ‘Am I an alien’, the question is ‘How the hell did you get here?’”

Silence. Marco looked at the Doctor, who in turn looked back at Marco. Marco realised what was expected of him. “Yeah, uh… long story. I got catfished.”

“Catfished by an alien, now there’s a story for The Jeremy Kyle Show. You feeling alright?”

Marco nodded. “Yeah, why?”

“Because you’re hanging upside down, and presumably have been for quite some time, so right about now all the blood should be rushing to your head.”

“Then what?”

“Well, I’d imagine your head would probably burst like a big fleshy balloon with eyes and teeth.” Even underneath all the fake tan, the Doctor could sense Marco turning white with fear. “But the point is… it isn’t.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Well, it’s a little worrying, yes.” The Doctor then took out the sonic and began to scan Marco with it. After analysing the results, the Doctor frowned.

“It is a bad thing, isn’t it?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because you’re frowning.”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are.”

“How can you tell, you’re upside down.”

“Have you ever seen your eyebrows? Half of the north-west can feel your frown.”

 _“SILENCE!”_ The Doctor and Marco slowly turned (or in Marco’s case, spun) round to face this new, anonymous voice. Before them, in the giant tank, was the Franciscan, staring down at them, its snake-like eyes glowing a fluorescent neon blue. _“THIS IDIOTIC CONVERSATION SHALL CEASE!”_

The Doctor moved forward, accidentally nudging Marco in the process, leaving him slowly spinning around in mid-air. “Ah, hello. I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of meeting-”

_“I DEMAND SILENCE.”_

“Well you’re the one that’s shouting, love, not me.”

* * *

_A little later…_

“Oh, finally! Sleeping Beauty has awoken!” Marco groaned.

Helen stared in awe at the scene before her. Both the Doctor and Marco were suspended from the ceiling by rope, and- oh god, what the hell was in that tank? Was that one of them aliens the Doctor was describing? And next to it, operating some kind of computer, or machine… well, it was a mad scientist, obviously. Helen rolled her eyes, as if this week couldn’t get any weirder, now she was on the set of some ridiculous 1970s sci-fi series.

And then, the scientist looked up to meet her gaze. God, he was even wearing a white lab coat and everything. All he needed was a maniacal laugh and they were ready to start filming ‘The Lizard People from Outer Space 2: Attack of the Insane Scottish Man’

“At last,” the scientist began “D.I. Jarvis, I’ve been expecting you.”

Helen ticked ‘I’ve been expecting you’ off her movie-villain cliché list. “Have you really? Should my ears be burning, then?”

“Well, your two colleagues have been complaining about your tardiness.”

Helen glared over at the Doctor. “It’s hardly my fault. He’s got a magic flute that can teleport people.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “One, it’s a tin whistle. And two, it’s a Stattenheim Summoner, and it doesn’t teleport people, it teleports my TARDIS _around_ people.”

“Your what-what?”

The Doctor nodded back over at the TARDIS. Helen turned around and finally realised something major. “Oh my god!”

“Helen, we really don’t have time for-”

“It’s smaller on the outside!” Helen covered her mouth in shock. Perhaps to stop herself vomiting, perhaps to stop herself from bursting into hysterical laughter, who knows.

“Yeah, we know. Can we just skip to the headline, please?” the Doctor growled.

“Which is what, exactly?”

The scientist bloke fiddled with some buttons on a keyboard, and brought up an image of dozens and dozens of faces on a large screen. “Maria McCormack,” he began. “Piotr Nowak. Chantelle Collins. Graham Muir. Sunita Singh. Olive Frapsworth. Katie-Ann Harding. Tom Law. Do you want me to continue?”

Helen stood in shock for a moment. “Have you… killed all these people?”

The scientist scoffed. “Of course not, you ridiculous woman. They all died of natural causes. All I did was mix up their DNA a little bit.”

“Why? Why would you do that, what did they do to you?”

“Nothing. Not one thing. Well, not them personally, at least.”

“Then why did you do it!?” Helen felt herself getting hotter and hotter, rage began to overwhelm her. “Why would you do that to them!?”

“They’re humans. Horrid, bigoted, judgemental little humans. That’s all. That’s the only reason I did it. Because, you see D.I. Jarvis, the human race are a plague. A disease. A scourge on the galaxy that need to be wiped out entirely. And I want to be the one to do it.”

“But _why_?”

The scientist moved over to the glass tank, and pressed his hands up against it. “This is why. The human race, they’re incapable of understanding. Incapable of compassion.” As though the Franciscan could feel his sadness, it too pressed its hands against the glass, directly opposite his.

“I’m not just some lunatic, y’know. I’m doing this for her.” he explained. “I’m doing this for my wife.”

Marco snorted. “My wife’s an alien? Now _that’s_ one for Jeremy Kyle.”


	7. Day 4: Sunday (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor, Helen and Marco discover more about their captor.

Helen wasn’t entirely sure how to process this new information. She was an open-minded woman, and proud of it – some of the things she’d seen at Manchester Pride with Marco last year would be enough to shock your average middle-aged white woman, but not her.

However, interspecies relationships were a new one on her. “Isn’t that… like, against some sort of law?” she asked.

The scientist marched towards her. “Well, you’re the police officer, you tell me. Is it? Is it against the law to fall in love? Really? Go on then,” he shouted, thrusting his arms towards her, like he was encouraging her to handcuff him “Arrest me! Lock me up and throw away the key! I’m Dr. Kenneth Montague and I’m in love, and I don’t care who knows it!”

All of this was going according to the Doctor’s plan, of course. Now that Dr. Montague was distracted, he could go about trying to loosen his and Marco’s ties. The quicker they got out of here, the quicker they could rectify whatever Montague had done to them – specifically Marco. His DNA now contained traces of Franciscan, and the Doctor predicted he didn’t have long until he met a similar fate to that of Maria McCormack or Piotr Nowak.

Helen’s blood began to boil. “Well I’m Detective Inspector Helen Jarvis!” she shouted back at Montague. “I couldn’t care less who you share your bed with. What I _do_ care about is justice – justice for the people you experimented on, justice for the families of those innocent victims you _murdered_!”

Helen backed Montague against a wall, and he slumped down against the floor. “I’m not a murderer” he whimpered, like a scolded child. “I never wanted it to be like this. I just wanted us to be happy. Wanted _her_ to be happy.” The scientist gazed over at his wife. “If people had just accepted us, it could’ve all been so different.”

Montague’s eyes began to glaze over as he started daydreaming. “We met by chance. I was fishing, silly little pastime really, my ex-wife hated it. And then falling from the sky, it looked like some sort of meteor. But then it kept getting closer and closer, it was white, and smooth, and clean. Too clean to be organic. It landed in the water in front of me. I thought about calling UNIT, I knew some people there from my time at medical school, but then I saw her. Swimming out from this sphere, a beautiful creature, and I thought ‘No’, I couldn’t call anyone, they’d only try to shoot her. That’s the thing, you see, humans… we don’t understand the value of life, we spend our entire existence trying to tear each other apart. She rose from out of the water, and it was like she was speaking directly into my brain. _My name is Skaleera_ , she said. And that was when I fell in love.”

“Correction.” The Doctor scoffed. Montague and Helen both jumped at this sudden interruption. By now, the Doctor and Marco were both free from their ties. The Doctor was standing boldly next to Skaleera’s tank, while Marco was on the floor nursing his rope burns. “You _thought_ you’d fallen in love. That’s the Franciscan way, you see. A most intoxicating scent secreted from the nasal glands. Confuses anyone nearby into thinking they’ve found their soulmate. How am I so sure, I hear you ask? Well, I’ll show you my wedding video later.”

“How dare you?” Montague croaked, rising to his feet. “How _dare_ you write my relationship off as a trick! You haven’t the first clue what you’re talking about!”

The Doctor rolled his eyes, and strolled across to the far end of the warehouse. A quick blast of the sonic switched on the large lights on the ceiling, revealing a large curtain sectioning off one area of the building. “Oh really? Well, I think…” he explained, dashing over to one edge of the curtain, pulling it back. “ _This_ is your grand plan!” With a quick yank, the curtain fell to the floor, revealing a large missile behind it.

Helen stood, open-mouthed, in awe. “It’s a bloody rocket!”

A slow clap echoed throughout the warehouse. Montague, smirking, strolled casually towards the Doctor. “Well done, sir. You had the genius insight to… pull back a curtain? You really thought that would scare me into revealing my plans to you?”

“To be honest, yeah. It usually works, as well.” The Doctor grinned.

“Alas, my dear friend, not today. No, I’m afraid your time here is at an end.”

The Doctor raised both hands in the air, surrendering. “Fair enough, you got me. I’ll end up popping my clogs just like the rest of these silly little humans. I’ve been done like a kipper, good and proper. You win. But… before I go… you wouldn’t begrudge a dying man one last joke, would you?”

Montague raised an eyebrow.

“Doctor, doctor, I feel like a pair of curtains! Well…” In the blink of an eye, the Doctor threw the curtain over Montague’s head and sprinted back towards Helen and Marco. “Pull yourself together!”

As he grabbed Helen by the arm and yanked her back into the blue box, she said to him pointedly “Really? A psycho scientist is threatening to kill you and you think it’s the opportune moment for a crap joke?”

“Naturally!” he smiled at her, leading both her and Marco back into the TARDIS.

After scrambling to escape from underneath the giant curtain, Montague watched on disappointedly as the TARDIS dematerialised.

Inside the TARDIS, Helen had fetched a paper bag for a hyperventilating Marco while the Doctor played with the controls. “It’s alright,” she said to her colleague. “It gets better after a while. Just keep breathing into this.” After patting him on the back, she left him sitting on some stairs, and wandered over to the console to join the Doctor. “There was an alien in there. A real alien.”

“Don’t act so shocked, you’ve been rubbing shoulders with me for the past few days, and I’m as alien as they come.”

Helen simply stared at him. She assumed she was supposed to feel surprised by this supposed revelation, but quite honestly, nothing about this ‘Doctor’ shocked her anymore. “Alright then, a proper alien. With… eyes and everything.”

“Yes, you’ll find that most aliens do have some form of organ that provides vision. Many are even blessed with two.”

“Oh alright, quit the sarcasm. You’re used to all this, I’m not, I’m allowed to be just a little bit unsure of it. Go on then, tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“What Montague’s plot is, obviously.”

“Oh, I’ve absolutely no idea. That’s what I was hoping to find out, but things went a bit… awry.”

“You mean you got tied up?”

“Basically, yeah.” The Doctor admitted. The conversation was broken up by a sudden spluttering from the other side of the room. Helen and the Doctor peered round the time rotor, and found Marco lying on the floor, foaming at the mouth.

Helen rushed over to his side. “I think he’s having a fit! Don’t just stand there, do something! This place is huge, you’re bound to have some First Aid Kit or _something_!” she shouted at the Doctor, panicking. She manoeuvred Marco into the recovery position.

“There’s not much I _can_ do, I’m afraid.” confessed the Doctor, solemnly.

“ _What?!_ What’s happening to him?” Helen cried.

“The same that happened to dozens of other people. His DNA is being rewritten. I’m sorry, but there’s very little we can do to save him.”

Helen looked down in despair, resigning herself to the fact that she had to watch her best friend die in front of her.


End file.
